TURKEY: Harsh criticism haunts Erdoğan from yesterday’s allies

ANKARA –Erdoğan’s foreign and internal economic policy is facing widespread criticism from former allies turned opposition, particularly over the further deteriorating economic situation in the country, the devaluation of the currency, and Ankara’s growing problems with foreign countries. Former Finance Minister for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and now head of Turkey’s opposition Democracy and Progress Party Ali Babacan, has renewed his criticism of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s foreign and internal economic policies. Speaking at his party’s first regional conference in Turkey’s south eastern city of Gaziantep, Babacan accused Erdoğan of shaming the country and that the Turkish president’s policies and many foreign interventions have isolated the country from its regional environment and caused hostilities with neighbors.

This was agreed by head of Turkish opposition Future Party Ahmet Davutoğlu. The former AKP Prime Minister described the Turkish president as a greater threat to the world than the Corona-pandemic. He said that the greatest danger to Europe and the world is the culture of tyranny spread by populist leaders; “As long as the citizens of this country suffer from misery and grave and widespread corruption, and as long as the dignity of our country is insulted abroad, we will say every day again “we want early elections”,” he said.